"Is ruining lives your version of a back-to-school welcome?" Morgan McCaul, a survivor of sexual abuse by former MSU doctor Larry Nassar, tweeted as reports of the potential changes broke this week.

"When we define policy about criminal sexual misconduct, it is imperative that we consider victims first," she told the Detroit Free Press later. "Limiting the availability of justice for complainants is concerning and reckless, especially in today’s climate."

The proposed changes, from the federal Department of Education led by Betsy DeVos, would limit colleges to investigating only those sex assaults that happen on campus. Assaults that occur just off campus, in places like fraternity houses or off-campus housing, no longer would be investigated by the institutions.

The changes would also have the department’s Office for Civil Rights use a higher legal standard to determine whether a college violated Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination at an educational institution based on sex, including sexual harassment, assault or rape.

“The lack of clear regulatory standards has contributed to processes that have not been fair to all parties involved, that have lacked appropriate procedural protections, and that have undermined confidence in the reliability of the outcomes of investigations of sexual-harassment allegations,” the draft from the Department of Education says, according to The New York Times.

The proposed change in philosophy drew sharp words from many who work with survivors.

Sage Carson, the manager of Know Your IX, a victim advocacy organization, said she was in the grocery store when she first heard of the change. She sank to the ground, she told the Free Press, in shock.

"This is the most pro-school and pro-perpetrator moves since the creation of Title IX 45 years ago," she said.

She was particularly concerned about limitations on when universities will get involved based on the location of an assault.

"Where I'm assaulted does not change that I might have to be in a class with my assaulter," she said, saying schools currently can change class schedules and provide other support to survivors.

Adding direct cross-examination would be wrong, she added.

"I dropped my case because I learned I was going to be questioned directly by the person who assaulted me with only a curtain separating us," she said. She does think both sides should be able to submit questions to a third party to ask of the other side if they are relevant to the case.

"This really seems to be aimed at taking the schools off of the hook and making them not responsible for doing anything when an assault occurs."

Other groups echoed those concerns.

"The #MeToo movement has changed the country and made clear that we need new institutional accountability to prevent and address sexual harassment and assault," Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement. "Be clear: A movement will rise up to fight these attacks on the rights of students, the likes of which Secretary DeVos has not yet seen. She should reconsider whether she wants to go down this path."